Reports from the Farm

Pinwheel Farm, where I'm "going around in circles," is a constant source of amusement, amazement, learning, inspiration, and WORK. This blog is to share all that with my family and friends, since I can't possibly find the time to correspond with each of you personally.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Last but not least, before getting an animal that needs shearing to be healthy and comfortable (angora goat or wool sheep), be sure you have a plan for having it sheared. You COULD do it yourself, but it is truly a challenge with a squirming animal (and the smaller they are the wigglier they are, it seems). It is horrible to nick your own animal by accident, and all too easy.

I will be making plans for City Shepherds to bring their sheep to the farm on our regularly scheduled Sheep Shearing Day Open House. They will be kept separate from my flock, and biosecurity measures will apply, but it will make life soooooo much easier for new shepherds. Our shearer can also give lessons at shearing day.

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

The City of Lawrence just passed regulations allowing small ruminants (pygmy goats and sheep) to be kept within city limits! This is exciting news for livestock lovers with large lots!

But there's a down side. Goats and sheep are cute, but they ARE livestock, not pets. They aren't just dogs that eat hay.

Here are some words of wisdom from a livestock pro: First things first! Before you decide to get any kind of livestock, esp. sheep and goats, you need to have the following things really nailed down, not just "we'll figure it out when we get there".

1. Carcass disposal. Even if it's years in the future, you need to plan this BEFORE it happens, because you won't be in any shape to make decisions or track down options when it does. A rabbit or chicken isn't a big deal (chicken bones go in the trash all the time), but a goat or sheep in the garbage can in the middle of the summer is probably a bad, bad idea. Alternatives that work in the country probably won't work on a city lot.

2. Manure management. Everything poops (yes, dogs do, too). With livestock, this is a good thing IF you have a system set up before the manure starts rolling in.

3. Transportation. Don't just have the seller deliver your new livestock. If you don't have access to safe, humane transportation for it, don't bring it home. You may need to transport it to the vet in an emergency. Veterinary "farm calls" are an extra $100 or more on top of the cost of exam or treatment.

4. Veterinarian. Most Lawrence vets want nothing to do with small ruminants. Hopefully this will soon change, but unless it does, plan on taking your livestock to Eudora Animal Hospital, Pleasant Valley in Tonganoxie, or Baldwin. Many medications, esp. for sheep, legally require a vet's oversight, even if you administer the medication to the animal yourself. That means establishing a relationship with an appropriate vet BEFORE there is a crisis.

5. First aid kit. Treatment tools, thermometer, basic treatments, bandages, wound treatments, etc. Figure this out with your vet. When crisis hits, you can handle it much better if you have the items you need at hand. Your vet, or an experienced livestock handler, can talk you through a lot on the phone.

6. Willingness to administer injections. Those vets are a long way away if your animal needs daily or twice-daily injections to treat an illness or injury. Also see #3.

7. Good fences, gates with good latches, animal shelters, AND animal-proof storage for hay, grain, etc. BEFORE the animal arrives. These need to be stronger than you can even imagine, because these animals like to rub (sheep) and climb (goats). Facilities must also include a small gated pen that can be used to catch and restrain the animal. They can run faster than you...even when they are almost dead.

8. Proper, humane restraints designed for sheep and goats. A collar and lead rope, at least. Also preferably a gambrel restrainer or cuff, for emergency restraint.

9. Feed suppliers. More than one source for the kind of feed you need, in case your usual supplier is out. Sometimes "out" means "until the next hay crop". There will inevitably be times when you can't just feed grass.

10. Back-up chore people. You generally can't take livestock for boarding, so you'll have to have someone come to your house while you are on vacation. Or out of town for work or funeral. Or when your entire family has the flu and can't crawl out to the sheep shed through a blizzard.

11. A lawn mower. Because there are kinds of grass your goat or sheep won't touch with a 10 foot pole.

12. Insemination. If you want to breed your sheep or goat so you can have babies and milk, be sure you have a deal with a stud owner in the country where you can take your gal for a honeymoon, or learn about AI for goats. Sheep pretty much have to be naturally bred. Bear in mind that many of us keep closed flocks, do not want other people's animals on our farm, and do not "loan out" our rams. Promiscuity can spread disease, right?

13. Backup source of colostrum and milk if you are breeding sheep or goats. Again, you won't have time or mental capacity to figure this out from scratch if your mom-critter doesn't have milk for her newborn. Colostrum must be given within 8 hours of birth.

14. A plan for male offspring. Please, please, please be real about this. If you want milk, you have to keep breeding goats or sheep every year, and you can't keep all the babies with limited space. Someone else will probably want your female animals, but most of your friends do not want non-productive animals unless they can take them for slaughter. Inevitably most male animals will be slaughtered. Don't breed if you don't want this to happen.

15. Learn about prey animal psychology. Sheep and goats are very, very different than dogs...they are more like horses. Studying up on low-stress livestock handling, Monty Roberts-style horse training, etc. will help you learn to interact calmly with your sheep and goats. Most people only know how to interact with dogs, using predator body language. If you interact with sheep and goats that way, they'll panic, and you'll be frustrated.

NOW you're ready for the fun part--deciding which species, which breed, which farm, which animal, and what to name it!

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Yes, Pinwheel Farm, the sheep, Sookie, the chickens, and the whole rest of the Community of Life are still here. Facebook has been a powerful distraction, as has simply survival. Send a friend request to "Natalya Pinwheel Lowther" and like "Pinwheel Farm" if you want to keep up to date with farm events and products available.

It was also actually still here at the farm this morning...and quiet...unusual these past few years. Not just a stillness of wind and an absence of people coming and going at the farm, but also a blessed absence of the "new normal" background noise of diesel engines idling, large trucks sounding their horns, and earth-moving equipment alarms constantly chiming as they roar around pulverizing soil and trees at the neighbor's place.

The past several years have been a frustrating ongoing effort to get the county to enforce applicable codes...doubly frustrating, because of my own long history of being subjected to non-existant codes and falsified complaints. The recently intensified flurry of earthmoving and construction next door seems to be, finally, some progress towards compliance with codes and away from the junkyard it had become. (Quadruply frustrating, because I'm poised to begin working with the FOURTH Zoning and Codes administrator since the situation next door began to escalate, and since this is an interim Administrator, there is a fifth in my not-so-distant future.)

Anyhow.

I took advantage of the perfect day--peaceful, still, quiet, overcast, pleasant fall temperature--to sort out sheep for breeding groups. This will give us lambs just before and during sheep shearing* in the spring...a bit earlier than usual, hoping to clear the calendar later in March and April for more timely intensive spring planting. (*Third Saturday in March every year...Open Farm Day...Like Pinwheel Farm on FB for information as the date nears.)

It was great having a constant stream of WWOOFers here from June until a couple weeks ago. We were able to "work sheep" (run them through the handling system** and record weights) every week or two, something that hasn't happened in a couple years due to lack of volunteers. One of the lasting benefits now that everyone is gone is that the sheep are well trained to the chute, so I can easily work them solo. Which I did this morning...more than once. (**You can click over to Pinwheel Farm's album on Facebook to see photos and notes on the handling system.)

Just so all you non-livestock-farmers can appreciate what goes into your lamb chops and mittens, and so you wanna-be-livestock-farmers can have a glimpse of what you're getting yourselves into, here's the morning's drill:

1. Realize that the older ram, Wesley, has jumped the electric fence out on pasture to get closer to the ewes.

2. Ewes loafing in the barnyard decide to explore the loading ramp, and push open the gate at the top (gate at the bottom was left unlatched and open, and top gate left closed but unlatched, when I loaded market lambs last Wed. Note to self...don't do that!) while I'm doing chicken chores. Suddenly they are all in the garden. (Must have been a lovely waterfall of fat wooly sheep cascading off the upper end of the ramp...I'll have to stage that sometime and take a video.)

3. Round up ewes with novice working dog (sometimes helpful, sometimes unhelpful, always eager) and get them into an unused paddock near the garden.

4. Let them graze there long enough that their tummies are full and they are willing to leave.

5. Run them up to the barn and into the crowding pen for the chute.

6. Start weighing sheep in the chute.

7. Realize that the list of which ewe goes with which ram is still in the house. Hope sheep stay in chute while running to house for list. (They do.)

8. Mentally run through the whole Rubick's Cube puzzle of how to organize the sorting and moving so that the groups can be joined as needed and moved to the right places on the farm without mixing. (Another sort pen would be really handy, sometimes.)

9. Sort out Wesley's ewes into the side holding pen while weighing all ewes and trying to evaluate which white ewe lamb to keep (the black one's a no-brainer--she's close to my end breeding goal for perfect fleece). Oops, two of Wesley's ewes end up with Quincy's ewes and the market lambs because I'm distracted by doing too many things at once.

10. Run Quincy's ewes and the market lambs back into the crowding pen and through the chute again to sort out the other two Wesley ewes.

11. Run Quincy's ewes and the market lambs back into the crowding pen. Open gate between main holding pen and "buffer zone" between the holding pen and the crowding pen. (Don't usually use this buffer zone for holding animals, but without another sort pen it's the only solution for this puzzle.)

12. Run Quincy and the ram lambs over from the other side of the farm and shut them in the buffer zone. (Handy that Wesley has trapped himself in the pasture and can't join them...saves a couple steps in the whole process.)

13. Run Wesley's ewes to the other side of the farm where Quincy and the ram lambs were. (The grass is greener over there, so no problem.)

14. Walk out to the pasture and take down the fence that Wesley jumped. Follow Wesley as he walks up to join the ewes, and observe who's going to lamb in exactly 5 months (April will lamb in March).

15. Back to the barn. Manually separate Quincy from the market lambs and put him in the main holding pen.

16. Run the ewes through the chute to join Quincy, sorting the white ewe lambs out into the sort pen for a final evaluation. (One of them will be kept as a replacement ewe.)

17. Realize that I've been miscounting ewe lambs, and actually have one more than I thought. Which means one more than I have scheduled for processing. Which means either keeping an extra one for breeding, or selling one on the hoof. (Don't need to decide that now.)

18. Watch ewe lambs for awhile: compare weights; look at hoof color; ear/skin/face/leg color; tail mobility, wooliness, and length; wool density, length, texture, and character; wool cover pattern (clean face, legs, belly), overall conformation and behavior. (Sometimes I consider who the dam is, but in this case I'm just looking at the lambs. Whoever the dam is, she will get extra "points" for having her lamb selected, rather than the lambs getting extra points for having a particular dam.)

19. Choose two, actually the smaller ones. Judging by ear tag numbers, they are some of the youngest, they were sired by Wesley, and they have the silkiest and densest fleeces plus some dark skin on their faces which indicates some colored genetics lurking in there under Wesley's whiteness. Put them in with Quincy and his ewes.

20. Run Quincy and his ewes out to their side of the pasture and close the gate. Hope that Quincy and Wesley will both be content with their own ewes and not figure out how to jump into the main lane that serves as a buffer between the groups, which would probably lead to fighting through the fence and maybe jumping the other fence and getting into the same pasture which would lead to a lot of fighting and general mayhem. (Wesley--older, bolder, wiser, and larger--is on the side with the strongest, highest fence.)

21. Since I'm out there, take a side trip to evaluate the pasture they've been grazing down in the far west, along the drainage ditch. They've done a great job on poison ivy and other weeds. (Need to rearrange fences so Quincy's group can clear out some other areas before frost. That will also give more separation from Wesley.)

22. Spend awhile watching a mixed flock of small birds catching bugs in the big elm trees. Junco, tufted titmouse, and apparently several species of warblers in fall plumage--hard to identify, esp. as they move quickly and appear mostly silhouettes against the gray sky. (Good reminder that what I've done with this land DOES make a big difference for wildlife...esp. now that the neighbors are bulldozing most of the thickets and trees on their property, destroying a lot of wildlife habitat.)

23. Notice that the neighbors who are doing the earth moving have set up a situation where if we get a heavy rain, a lot of silt will flood over my pasture. (Mental note to follow up on this with appropriate agencies to ensure that adequate sediment control is in place to prevent erosion/siltation).

24. Notice that the other neighbors have set up their horse fences so that the horses are walking up and down a fence line at the top of the bank of the drainage ditch, which could lead to severe erosion and sedimentation of the publicly managed ditch that drains most of the county north of here. (Mental note to do some education with neighbors and follow up with Drainage District. I'm not a busy-body; this ditch is vital to the whole area, and my pasture is one of the places the water first backs up into if the ditch doesn't function as designed.)

25. Check fences. (This area has been subject to several incidents of people vandalizing perimeter fences over the past few years, rendering parts of my pasture unusable at times.)

26. Head back towards the barn to put the market lambs in their new pasture. Oops, here they are! How did they get out of the barn? (Turns out the heavy gate to the sort pen was unlatched, and they eventually pushed it open.)

27. Round up the market lambs and put them in their pasture.

28. Back to the barn to check that there's mineral in the mineral feeder, check all gates, etc.

29. Mental checklist to be sure that all groups have access to water and are well separated by "hard" (not electric) fences.

30. Gather up weigh sheet and breeding group notes and head to the house. (I'll compare weights to last week's and calculate gains/losses later.)

31. BONUS! Discover that there has been an egg in my sweatshirt pocket ever since I chased the ewes out of the garden, AND IT HASN'T BROKEN! A testimony to good handling equipment, trained sheep, and a (somewhat) trained working dog...not to mention a lot of experience and understanding of sheep psychology and behavior. And patience. Especially notable since some days I can't even seem to walk from the coop to the house with a pocketed egg without an "eggsident".

If this all sounds like a fun, exciting morning, just give me a call. We can arrange a "play date" at the farm sometime soon...like when I need to weigh all three groups again in a week or two.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

About 8 years ago, I started an experiment at my Farmer's Market booth. When I settled on my current popular salad green/herb display--"mix 'n' match, $10/lb., as little or as much as you want, take what you like and leave the rest"--I soon realized that often folks just wanted a few herbs, which didn't even register on the scale. So I started the "$1.00 for a small bag, whatever herbs you want to put in it."

It's been very popular, and enlightening as well. People love not having to buy more than they will use, and being able to get just the fresh herbs they need for the recipe du jour. They love not being forced to waste food. Often they are happier with one fragrant sprig than they would be with a larger package, because they don't want to waste.

There are also always a few who make their pesto (because this usually happens during basil season) in the small bag, cramming in the tender herbs until the juices run. I don't weigh the bags, but I'm sure I've seen $3 worth (by weight) of herbs in a $1 bag.

And then there are the "regulars" who put twice their usual amount of herbs in the bag, and give me $2, even though they are still only getting a few snippets of this and that. Even though I still smile and say, "That'll be $1." They know what it's worth to them. It's twice their usual.

From time to time, someone new to my booth comments on my little experiment. "Don't people take advantage of that?" No, not really. For every pesto-maker, there are many sprig-takers. It all averages out...and overall, I make more money on the herbs this way that if I sold them by weight or by pre-measured bunches.

It's a good deal for everyone...people get what they want, they essentially choose their price, they take only what they can use, and I don't have to pre-weigh/pre-bag/label/etc.

***
Green onions are another long-time experiment. It used to be, there just wasn't much demand for them. I bunched them in rubber bands like the store, and then took them home and took off the rubber bands to throw them in the compost (before Just Food). Eventually I got frustrated with the wasted effort and just laid them on the table in loose bunches. Figuring out how big to make bunches of anything can be a pain in the neck when the items vary in size both within the day's offering and from week to week. Every bunch required at least some small mental activity to decide what was in that particular bunch.

One day I didn't separate them into bunches. "You get to pick your own bunch," I told the customers. "How big is a bunch?"they asked. "You know how big a bunch of green onions is...like in the store," I replied. "No, I don't." "Yes, you do" I would laugh and smile. And timidly, they would start picking up onions, looking at me for cues after the first few. "How many is in a bunch?" they would ask, hoping I would relent and spare them the responsibility. "It depends on what size they are. You might want all big ones, all small ones or some of each." I would smile and repeat myself. "You know how big a bunch of green onions is." And by golly, they would almost always pick out exactly a bunch of green onions.

This was, in part, about getting customers involved in the process of vegetables, the post-harvest handling that for conventional grocery-store veggies is often done by migrant workers living and working in grueling conditions. It was also about building self-confidence, about showing people they know something that they didn't think they knew.

Sometimes people needed a little more guidance. "It's enough that you feel like you're getting a good deal, and not so much that you feel like you're cheating me," I would tell the still-skeptical.

There are, of course, outliers in the range of green-onion-purchasers. These fall into a couple categories. One is people who don't normally shop who have been sent to Farmer's Market with lists. It's pretty easy to tell from the deer-in-the-headlights look that they truly do not know how big a bunch of green onions is. They aren't even quite sure if they know what green onions are. I demonstrate, teaching them gently for next time. Another is people from other cultures where informal direct sales venues like our Farmer's Market are common, and haggling over prices is the norm. They are inclined to make somewhat larger bunches, and then keep adding to them. I don't argue. It's just a few onions.

As with the $1 herb bags, there are also those who won't use a whole bunch. So I sell half bunches for half price. But sometimes, people don't even want half a bunch. They hold up one or two onions. "Whatever it's worth to you," I say. Often they give me the half-bunch price. It's worth it to them to not have to waste the rest of the half-bunch. And it's worth it to have the one green onion.

***
This year, for the first time, I planted a row of okra. For some yet-undiagnosed reason, the plants are suddenly dying, one by one. Harvest is slim, but more than I need for home use. So I take a small bag to market each week.

Today, a customer picked out the choicest small ones that she wanted. "How much?" "What's it worth to you?" I asked. "How about a dollar?" "That's fine." She paid and went away happy. Not long after, another customer looked at the remaining okra, about the same amount but coarser pods. "How much?" "What's it worth to you?" "How about a dollar?" "OK" The customer handed me a dollar...and then handed me another one. "No, two dollars!" And walked away happy.

A little later, a customer and I discussed a small purchase while I was packing up. "A dollar or whatever," I said. She handed me a $5 bill. I went to make change. "No, keep it," she said.

***
A few weeks ago, a FaceBook (and long-time face-to-face) friend posted an angry comment about the high price of fresh food. She took stores to task for overcharging consumers...but also held Farmer's Market vendors accountable for charging high prices. When I responded with comments about small farmers' costs of production, and how artificially low our US food prices really are, she got angry with me. It was sad, because I'd long thought of this person as a friend and ally, and someone who (as a high-end food service professional) truly values food.

I challenged myself to reflect on whether there might be some truth to her accusation. I survey prices from other vendors, from the stores, and consider my production costs and quality differences when I price my produce. Are my prices were ridiculously high? Am I helping fuel inflation?

My market research says that for many people, my prices are just fine. And left to their own devices, my customers often would pay more than my set price.

In my friend's defense, we're both old enough to remember when gas was $.25/gallon and tomatoes were $.25/lb. (If you stop and think about it, the price of high-quality tomatoes in the store is often right about the same as a gallon of gas. Go figure. I'll take the tomato any day!) So yes, there has been a lot of inflation as the decades add up. But in the case of Farmer's Market prices, it seems to be a mutually agreeable situation.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Herding training has been on the back burner with my efforts to keep up with harvesting and planting. Lambing interfered, as well, because the ewes were fierce and I didn't want Sookie to be badly scared or, worse, injured by a protective mama. Also, I haven't had the sheep out on the pasture much this year, for various reasons.

But nevertheless, we've been in the pens and lanes with the sheep from time to time, and Sookie definitely wants to work them. But how? They have learned, over the past few years, to basically ignore dogs, or to stomp them. The bottom line has been, neither the sheep nor the dog knew what was expected of them, and I couldn't figure out how to get past that. It seemed like if one or the other would do their part of the dance that is working sheep with a dog, the other would follow the lead and I could coach.

But what we had going on was pretty much just pandemonium.

On the few occasions when we needed to get the sheep to do something, it basically amounted to me stomping and waving and yelling at sheep, while Sookie ran around, breaking through the middle of the flock, circling endlessly, ignoring my "lie down" commands, etc. I would try to direct her while also yelling at the sheep, and we would all end up frustrated and confused. Yet if I left her out of the pen and tried to move the sheep myself (which Toss taught me to do quite efficiently), she would run around like crazy and yelp and carry on, creating a distraction.

Eventually, I've figured out the following:

--Sookie is very "loose-eyed" for a Border Collie--whether by nature or by nurture (not seeing sheep until she was 3) I don't know. She works standing up, close in to the flock, and without a lot of direct eye contact. Although she is learning to keep her eyes on the sheep more, she still looks back at me a lot. I need to accept this as her natural working style, and stop expecting her to act like Toss.

--Sookie is incredibly gutsy, and will squeeze between the sheep and a fence or shed in very tight places without showing fear. She also doesn't take it personally when a ewe charges her...she'll get scared and run for a little way, but then she wants to go right back in as soon as she realizes the ewe has refocused.

--Sookie is a master of the "fake grip". She likes to get in close and pretend to bite the sheep in the face or rump. Over time, she is gaining more response from the flock because she is hounding them like a giant horsefly buzzing in their face. This seems to be a sense of annoyance on the part of the sheep, more than fear.

--I need to figure out ways to clearly distinguish between the commands I'm giving to the sheep (our familiar "Come, sheep" call that the sheep have learned to associate with fresh pasture) and the commands I'm giving the dog ("Sookie, Come").

The other day we easily sent most of the flock out to pasture, but a few remained in the green calf shed. This shed has 3 small stalls with narrow openings onto the lane. There was one yearling in each of the outer stalls, and a young ewe with lamb in the middle stall.

The single yearlings both fell for Sookie's "suction" method of getting sheep out of the stalls. She runs past the doors repeatedly, glancing in. After a few passes, the sheep inside get so nervous that they want to run out into the open. Eventually, she runs past and as soon as she passes, the sheep pops out of the shed right behind her and follows her for a few moments. Apparently for a sheep, it feels safer to have her moving away from them than towards them. She doesn't try to "get" them in any way once they are out, unless I direct her to.

The ewe and lamb were a different story. When mild "suction" across the front of the shed didn't work, Sookie intensified her effort by running in and out, back and forth between the now-empty stalls on each side of the central stall. Even that didn't work. So she went into their stall after them, running in circles between them and the walls in the tiny (6' x 4') stall. I think if she had stopped at the back of the shed, they would have moved away from her and out the door, but she kept orbiting. On the other hand, stopping might have allowed the ewe to target her. She forced her way around, moving so quickly the ewe couldn't really target her. Then she got right in and fake-gripped the ewe's nose repeatedly. The ewe was rattled but not budging out of that shed.

I finally went into the stall, being careful to avoid putting myself in danger if the ewe decided to bolt out. The ewe finally left with her lamb, but wanted back into the stall after I emerged so I had to guard it.

I encouraged Sookie to drive them down the lane to meet the other sheep. I kept stopping her to allow them to move at a leisurely pace during the heat of the day.

During the driving, the little ewe lamb stopped to pee. Sookie was right beside it, and they were about the same size. Sookie stood while it peed, with her open mouth very close to the lamb's face in a freeze-frame "fake grip". Both animals were relaxed with no sign of fear on the lamb's part. As soon as the lamb finished peeing, and moved on, Sookie completed her stop-action fake grip. The lamb merely tossed its head away from the dog, as if avoiding a fly, and ambled on.

I can see that we are making progress. It just doesn't look like what I expect a herding BC to look like.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

One reason Sookie needed a new home (and thus came to live with me) was her wanderlust. She would get bored, escape from fenced yards, and roam the 'hood solo.

At first, she was always on a leash here, learning to stay near me. Gradually I got tired of being tethered to the dog, and she got more used to staying around me, and the leash fell into disuse. Once in awhile, she would force her way through a gate and wander off, or I would forget and leave a gate open, but not too often, and she would come when I gave her special call. Not sure how I figured it out; it's sort of like a very loud bird-call version of her name, something that a peacock might utter. I'm sure the neighbors dislike it, but it gets her attention from a long distance even when there are trains, cars, helicopters, wind, etc. making noise.

Then Matt--who was great buddies with her--left the farm in early May. Since then she has been very bad about slipping away from the farm. I think she is looking for him...or maybe even hearing/smelling him somewhere in the neighborhood, since he has friends who live nearby.

If I notice she is missing from the farm (and I try to call her to me every little bit, to keep her on her toes and focused on me), I start calling and walking towards the driveway. Sometimes Maggie, the dog across the street, alerts me with her "tattle-tale" bark.

It can take a few minutes to get there from the farm. Sometimes she is already there by the time I get there, panting hard from her romp. More often, she comes bolting down 5th Street towards me, or is in a neighbor's yard. I worry about her getting hit by a car, so as soon as she is within earshot of regular commands and in a safe place, I order "lie down", and she does. She'll stay until I get there, though she knows what's coming: The Transport of Shame. I pick her up and carry her home.

No "bad dog", no scolding, just a stern silence and I pick her up and carry her. No evening stroll with Mom as a reward for bad behavior! She doesn't struggle, but neither one of us enjoys it very much. (I'm glad she does not weigh more than 35 lbs.).

Yesterday, she slipped away, and as I walked through the woodlot to the house, I heard her barking (unusual--she is a very quiet dog) up along the street. When I got to the driveway, she came right to me, and I saw a woman with a big dog on a leash walking down 5th Street away from the house. I realized that Sookie must have interrupted their walk by going up to them and barking at the dog.

I decided to chase them down and apologize for my dog being at large, and her bad behavior. So I told her to "lie down" and "stay there" in the driveway, and jogged about half a block to overtake the woman and her dog.

The woman was very nice about it. She said that Sookie had met them near the farm driveway, and run along our side of the street while the woman and dog were on the other side. As soon as Sookie got to our house, THEN she started barking--she knew exactly which space was hers to "defend"! We stood and talked for awhile. I kept glancing back at Sookie. She stayed right where I'd left her for quite awhile. When she stood up, I "downed" her again, and she stayed right there. The woman was amazed at her obedience.

I feel like it was a real triumph for Sookie's training in several ways. First, that she clearly demonstrated that she knew her proper space, and didn't try to claim the neighborhood as hers! Second, that she hadn't actually gone up to the dog on the leash, but had stayed on her side of the street. She can be a real b---- with strange dogs at first, and it would be bad if she did that without me around, with a dog on a leash. Third, that she stayed put for so long in her own yard while I talked to and petted a strange dog a half block away!

An awful lot of these involve paperwork. A lot of this paperwork happens in the winter, for three reasons: first, that's when we need to do crop-related planning for the coming vegetable production season; second, it's the only time I'm likely to have time to fill out paperwork; and third, everyone in farm-related businesses realizes this is the best time to get farmers to actually fill out paperwork.

And attend meetings. Trainings. Workshops. Seminars. Conferences. Etc. Each of which supplies the farmer with yet more paper, more paperwork, and copious notes.

This winter's calendar included: Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference (in St. Joseph, MO; we went 2 of 3 days); Wholesale Marketing Workshop (KCKS); Kaw Drainage District meetings; Grow Lawrence Annual Meeting; Food Policy Council meetings; Kaw Valley Seed Fair; Downtown Lawrence Farmers Market Annual Meeting; WIC Vendor Program Meeting. And more to come. This is only the ones we actually attended; there have been all kinds of farm shows, seminars, webinars, and workshops that we were just too busy to attend.

A few events still loom ahead--including one of the funnest, the annual scale certification party at Pendleton's Country Market where the farmers get to stand around and visit and eat donuts while waiting for our scales to be inspected and--glory hallelujah!--someone ELSE fills out the paperwork, in return for us writing checks!

Forms to fill out, fees to send in (farmers markets, WIC, etc.). Renewals (meat wholesaler, live plant dealer). Memberships (Grow Lawrence). Checking to be sure we aren't planning anything new for the year that will require yet another registration/certification/training/fee. Checking to be sure no regulations have changed that will require yet another registration/certification/training/fee.

Then there's the paperwork we make up for others to fill out, like surveys and sign-up forms for our CSAs. We'll be doing two CSAs at day care centers this year, as well as one that will bring people to the farm to pick up their weekly bags of produce.

That's the routine stuff, some of it stuff we've been doing every year for more than 15 years.

Then there's the big stuff. This year the big stuff has been mostly related to the new Douglas County Agritourism regulations, approved at last (after 3 years' work) on January 2, 2013. Many of our dreams for the farm have been hogtied for years--more than a decade in some cases--because County regulations just didn't accommodate the notion that people could, would, and should want to do things on farms like hike, picnic, buy farm-related products, etc. Picture those dreams as a string of racehorses fidgeting in the starting gate for 10 years, and now the gates have finally opened. They're off and running....

But wait! No! First there must be paperwork! And everyone has been so busy trying to get the regulation passed that no one has had time to design the forms to implement the regulation! County staff bent over backwards to get the forms done so we could submit our application in time for them to have a meeting to review our application and then another meeting with me to give us their approval...leaving maybe like 4 waking hours to prepare all of our promotional materials to hand out at the Seed Fair the next day. I was literally proofreading the County's draft forms a page at a time as the administrative assistant was printing them out!

Thus we became the first Agritourism site registered with the County--a status which allows you, whoever you are reading this, to walk on our farm without intent to do agriculture, and allows us to sell you items that we've made that aren't agricultural products (for example, drop spindles that we might make if we weren't so busy with paperwork), and allows us to invite other farmers to come sell things at our farm. We can offer workshops that aren't specifically about agricultural skills (for example, how to fill out agricultural paperwork).

But only if there are 100 of you or less at a time. Under the new regulations, if 101 people might show up for our Sheep Shearing Open Farm Day (March 16, 10 a.m.), we need to go through another layer of County registration which includes filling out another, more specific, application form; gaining the approval of the Board of County Commissioners; etc. Counting backwards from the scheduled sheep shearing day to the day the County would need to have our application left the County with about 3 days to create the form and get the form approved, giving us to put together a lengthy packet (including site plans) overnight.

If anyone wonders why I am not a university professor of something, it's because I hate working on deadline projects with acres of typewritten narratives, like grant applications...or Agritourism registrations. But, we got through it. Co-Farmer Matt saved the day with stellar mapping skills gained from his former Cubicleville engineering job. I, of course, gained a lot of application narrative writing experience at the environmental consulting firm where I worked for 7 years. Odd backgrounds for farming, but surprisingly handy.

We're making progress. The County Commission will decide on our ">100" application on March 13, 3 days before the event. With those applications behind us, we've moved on to getting the CSAs properly paperworked. Today was our second "info booth" event for that...one more to go.

Somewhere in there, we knocked out the application for the permit (and $250 fee) for our new well, and met with the Health Dept. to get approval for the well site. That will be a phased project, but at some point we'll need to fill out forms for the "Ag Use Exemption from Building Permit" for the well house to keep the pump from freezing. Last time we went through this exemption process, it took a lot longer to get the exemption from the permit than it would have taken to get a permit. Things have changed for the better at the County, and so I trust this process has been improved as well.

So, it's time to pull out the next big project...a new washhouse. In addition to actually deciding where to put it and how to build it, we have to get an Ag Use Exemption for it, too. Yay, more paperwork!

The new on-farm farmers' market doesn't need much paperwork other than the Agritourism Registration, but has been the subject of many long conversations with the County to work out details of parking, paving, sanitation, etc.

Weaving through all of these projects and plans is a constant thread of sanitation. People poop, and we need to plan for that and make sure they wash their hands. Animals poop, and we need to plan to keep it off our veggies and stuff. Pretty much sums it up. The Federal Food Safety Modernization Act dictates how these things need to be done--and, of course, documented. In between the doing and the documenting lie signage and standard operating procedures--written, of course. The self-assessment survey form that will guide us in knowing what paperwork we need to write and what we need to write it about is more than 30--THIRTY!--pages long.

I'm looking forward to spring, when we can rest from the hard work of winter paperwork by working in the garden!

About the SheepLady

My grandmother lived to 103; I'm barely over half that....

The first third of my life was spent wandering, in every way possible. Drifting is easy, but not always fun. In hindsight, I see that I was gathering a lot of "thought compost", some of which is great fertilizer and some is just, well, you know....

Eventually I stopped and planted the seeds of a small farm. Way more fun AND work than that silly virtual farm game.

Now I cultivate many things, including sheep, vegetables, the ability to laugh at my mistakes, appreciation of my friends and family, and sheer joy in God's creation.

As part of the harvest, I'll stop and pick a tasty treat now and then, and share it with you on this blog....

"Pinwheel Farm" is on facebook, too, with frequent messages from various members of the Community of Life.